Patrol

LAPD Captain Says City's Crime Stats are Manipulated

A Los Angeles Police Department captain has accused high-ranking members of the force of misclassifying violent crime and misleading the public about the true state of lawbreaking in the city.

Capt. Lillian Carranza, who oversees the LAPD’s Van Nuys station, alleged in a claim filed against the city last week that she began notifying superiors in 2014 about the underreporting of crime in the Foothill area, which includes Pacoima, Sunland and Tujunga — but no action was taken, the Los Angeles Times reports.

After assuming command of the Van Nuys station in 2015, she conducted her own analysis of violent crime reports stored in an LAPD database, according to the claim. The eight-page claim, which typically precedes a civil court lawsuit, did not include the raw data Carranza used in her analysis.

Aggravated assaults in 2016 were underreported by about 10% in the Pacific and Central divisions, according to the claim, which alleges that those cases were misclassified as less serious offenses.

A former police officer—now an elected official with the Missouri House of Representatives—wants to force any city with a population of 5,000 or fewer inhabitants, with an area of less than two square miles, to disband its police department and contract for law enforcement services with either the county police department or a larger neighboring city.